WASHINGTON — Nanne Kennedy is not in the habit of sitting still for long; her mind runs at about 100mph, and her body is trying hard to keep up.
As the owner and operator of Seacolors Yarnery at Meadowcroft Farm, Kennedy is responsible for all aspects of her 120-acre farm in Washington, on which she raises sheep for the wool, using a solar process with food-grade dyes to produce high quality yarns that deliver warmth without the itch.
“I usually do this like Julia Child, with things at every stage,” Kennedy said, referring to the chef who hosted a cooking show on PBS long before the Food Network or the Cooking Channel ever aired. “But not now, because I haven’t had much time and I can’t go get seawater, but there you have it.”
A herd of sheep and lambs belonging to Nanne Kennedy at Meadowcroft Farm in Washington. Kennedy runs the 80-acre farm where she raises sheep, prepares wool, dyes yarn and makes sweaters and blankets. As part of her craft, she developed a technique for dying colors using seawater and heat from the sun, rather than chemical salts and fuel-based heat sources. This year, her farm is among those that opened their gates to the public for Open Farm Day on Sunday. Ashley Allen/Kennebec Journal
Kennedy raises Polwarth sheep — the only such sheep in North or South America, she said — and uses their high-quality wool for the fine no-itch yarns she dyes and sells at farmers markets in Bath and Boothbay, at the annual Common Ground Country Fair in Unity and at shows and online. She also sells sweaters and blankets made from the wool as well as meat and sheepskins and occasionally border collies and livestock guardian dogs.
All the wool is sourced, scoured, spun, knitted or woven within a five-hour radius of her farm in Washington, where it’s dyed using a low carbon process she developed and has been using for nearly 30 years.
This year is a little different. The truck she uses to collect the sea water used in her solar dyeing has been in the shop waiting for a part since April. High winds damaged some of the solar setup she uses to dye, and she’s waiting for the carpenter to come fix that. And because of the cycle of wet weather that is bringing more rain and clouds than sun and warmth, the sheep that would normally be sheared in April weren’t sheared until July, because wet wool can’t be shorn. And following the heavy rains of a few weeks ago, she has lost some lambs to a suspected bacterial infection.
“It’s almost August,” Kennedy said. “It’s a short solar season this year, so I am kind of in a panic.”
But that short solar season also means she has more time for other things, like spending time with her mother, buying and installing a new refrigerator and considering what she can take on next.
Nanne Kennedy moves her herd of sheep closer to visitors Sunday at Seacolors Yarnery at Meadowcroft Farm in Washington for Open Farm Day. Kennedy runs the 80-acre farm where she raises sheep, prepares wool, dyes yarn and makes sweaters and blankets. Ashley Allen/Kennebec Journal
Seacolors Yarnery at Meadowcroft Farm was one of more than 100 farms across the state to welcome visitors on Maine Open Farm Day. The goal for the day is for Mainers to see where their food is grown or produced and to learn about how other products, like yarn or cheese, are made.
Natalie Curry, Colleen Raven and Raven’s son, Corbin, watched from the edge of the fenced pasture while Kennedy took three of her border collies down to the field where her sheep have been grazing to move them closer to the house and barn.
As she whistled and called to her dogs to gather up the flock, Curry and the Ravens watched.
“We go to farmers market and the Common Ground fair,” Raven said. “But it’s nice to see an actual farm.”
Curry said she keeps chickens and a few cows that Corbin, who is a toddler, has seen from a distance, but they thought it would be fun for him to see animals closer up.
Corbin Raven, center, and his mother, Colleen Raven, left, from Searsmont and their friend Natalie Curry, right, watch as Nanne Kennedy moves her herd of sheep closer to visitors Sunday at Seacolors Yarnery at Meadowcroft Farm in Washington on Open Farm Day. Ashley Allen/Kennebec Journal
“When I was growing up, I showed cows in 4H,” Curry said . “I have always loved seeing what different people do. What she does seems very unique and cool.”
They had already stopped at Sweet Season Farm, also in Washington, for the blueberries they had for picking and for sale, and they intended to continue their tour, but not before Curry bought a skein of yarn.
Kennedy uses seawater from the Great Salt Bay that sits along the Damariscotta-Nobleboro line, solar heat and food-grade dyes to color the yarn spun from wool from her flock in a self-contained process. She has removed the metals like copper and alum that commercial dying processes have used, shrunk the carbon footprint and reduced the waste that the process generates. Both the waste and the water are recyclable.
The steady stream of visitors on Sunday meant that Kennedy could show off different parts of the operation in greater detail. After Curry and the Ravens left, the next visitor wanted to know about dying, and the one after that wanted to know about more about the Polwarth fiber, which she wanted to spin into yarn herself.
Nanne Kennedy explains to visitors Sunday how she prepares and dyes yarn at Seacolors Yarnery at Meadowcroft Farm in Washington as part of Open Farm Day. Kennedy runs the 80-acre farm where she raises sheep, prepares wool, dyes yarn and makes sweaters and blankets. As part of her craft, she developed a technique for dying colors using seawater and heat from the sun, rather than chemical salts and fuel-based heat sources. Ashley Allen/Kennebec Journal
She’s now kicking around an idea to develop a competitor to Polar fleece using wool and either hemp or linen funded by Kickstarter.
“My hidden agenda here is to have bast fiber processing in Maine,” Kennedy said.
Bast fiber comes from the inner bark of some plants like flax, hemp or ramie, among others.
“I want to give cotton a run for its money. (Bast) doesn’t take much out of the soil, you can grow it like nobody’s business and it would be another industry for Maine, where we’re losing a lot of our industries,” Kennedy said.
And because it’s not food, it could be grown on PFAS-contaminated soils, she said.
Kennedy has plans to build two new buildings to house her sheep in the winter and preserve the quality of their wool and she’s also working on a plan to fund a project to see how the Polwarths would fare in other environments across the United States.
That’s for another day, though.
As more visitors just pulled in, and she was off to invite them to visit her website and sign up for her newsletter and show off another aspect of her operation.
Corbin Raven, center, and his mother, Colleen Raven, left, from Searsmont play with Ness, a sheep herding dog, on Sunday at Meadowcroft Farm in Washington for Open Farm Day. Ashley Allen/Kennebec Journal
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